LAST FRONTIERS OF THE MIND

This is not a book review. It is a summary of the main ideas discussed in the following book. viz.

LAST FRONTIERS OF THE MIND

Challenges of the Digital Age

By A.Mohandas Moses

Prentice-Hall of India Private Limited, 2007

- - ______________________________- _______

Study of human consciousness is a matter of absorbing interest to scholars and laymen alike. It is also a perpetual challenge to human intelligence and ingenuity.

Search for the meaning of consciousness is central not only to philosophy but to

science also. The similarities between human mind and the most intelligent machine are amazing, but the differences are no less significant.

Concepts used in soft sciences (Arts and humanities) are not susceptible to scientific investigation. Scientists think that study of mind in philosophy is more involved with language, concepts and categories.

Recommended By Colombia

On this ground philosophy is treated as the hand maiden of sciences and its role is regarded as secondary.

At the same time it is obvious that scientists too deal with untested hypotheses and classical physics is far from knowing the true nature of human consciousness.

Both sides, while critical of each other, have to admit that there are wide gaps of knowledge in their respective fields.

Many neuroscientists believe in brain mind identity. This only skirts the issue.

The alternative view is that there is an element in the human mind which can be explained only in religious terms.

Some mathematicians think that mystery of the mind can be unraveled by algorithms. Others don’t subscribe to this view. Alan Turing, progenitor of AI (Artificial Intelligence) sidestepped the issue of consciousness.

Nor is equating mathematics with mysticism a new idea or a satisfactory approach.

Those who try to explain consciousness in the language of physics and chemistry have not been successful in their effort. Neuroscience too has its limitations. Planting consciousness in machines is not practicable and has not been successful despite progress made in Artificial Intelligence.

Computers can change the way we think. To what extent human creativity will be influenced by this, needs to be considered. Behaviorism and computational approach do not take us much further. Computational approach implies body mind separation.

Evolutionists believe man is a cosmic accident and evolution has no teleological goal. At the same time, it seems that progress, to make sense has to be anthropocentric. Human level of consciousness should be raised to a higher level, so the average person can become a genius. Development of machine mind should be a secondary need.

There is too much information (and numerical data) available today. They can be of use only if we understand them. This is not possible without help of machines (Computers)

To analyze, digest, abstract and conceptualize vast amounts of information we have to depend on machines, which however function on the basis of pure logic.

At some level intuition should transcend reason or else even after doing much work, the conclusions may not be satisfactory. Identity of mind and object will be required for full understanding.

“Mind is the mystery of mysteries”. Philosophy gets bogged down in language, meanings and categories. Grand theories become captives of the resulting vagueness.

Machine is a good slave but a poor master.

If computer can beat chess champion what about ordinary man. He will be dealing with machines beyond his control in the real sense.

Men obsessed with machines start behaving like machines. They become blind to philosophy. AI treats man as thinking monad in stead of as integral organic unit of nature.

Apart from Cartesian duality, one has to reckon with the fact that AI is rule- bound or algorithmic. Human intelligence goes beyond this.

Man has two parts, viz. programmed and un-programmed.

He is programmed by genetics and environment.

The un-programmed part breaks loose into creativity and genius. This invaluable part is under threat. Human variety is so baffling that machines howsoever intelligent can’t tackle this.

We are entering the ‘dark age of information’, which gives no understanding. Effectively,priesthood will be conferred on computer.

Information explosion will lead to countless fields of specialization. Only machine can handle them completely on a total basis. Man will be helpless. He will have to abdicate to machine even his thinking, which is his higher role or skill.

For conceptual thought, human mind is a must and it cannot be replaced. AI will need guideposts, but in creativity, there are no guideposts .Neuroscientists study brain bit by bit. AI feels this will take a long time to reach the stage of understanding consciousness. Both skirt the issue of consciousness. Brain mind cannot be fully understood.

Reduction of world into real world and virtual world and increasing recourse to virtual world are disturbing trends.“Being there” and “seeing on screen” are very different. But the boundaries are blurring.

Compact three pound human brain seems to be still greater than any machine.Priority should be not to developing of thinking machines, but developing mind of man.

Difference between man and other species is in the level of consciousness.Machine simulates lower levels of consciousness only, not higher levels. Disuse of higher level leads to atrophy and man will lose skills now available to him.

Man as hunter-gatherer has been slow in his progress, but the past gave us Einstein with his e=mc^2, Shakespeare’s plays, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.We do not know whether machines can achieve similar feats.

Arthur Clerk’s view on this subject that man will soon be overtaken by intelligent computers should be taken seriously.

Now there are too many aids or prosthetics to human mind. Organic mind did not rely on writing, as its memory was reliable. This is not to suggest that we can afford to give up these aids to mind. The danger is that the digital mind will destroy organic mind. Surrogate mind is challenging genuine one. How mind works no one knows even now.

Machine thinks, but it does not understand.

For thought, man should be the measure. The need for understanding is being ignored.

In the search for meaning machine can’t help. AI holds the opposite view. It believes that study of behavior is enough. We are at an important crossroads in philosophy of mind at the beginning of this century, where computers by sheer numbers are exerting powerful influence.

In stead of living life, we are simulating it. In any age, digital or otherwise, man should be the measure. If this is accepted answers become clear. Human thinking is different from machine thinking. “Mind is a process, not a substance.”

Neuron connections of brain cannot be replicated. Neurobiology of mind is helpful and should be pursued. Machine can’t feel. At higher levels of consciousness algorithm is not adequate. Classic physics fails here; quantum physics is yet to come up with its solutions. AI thinks man is computer made of meat. Tendency to see man as machine is growing.

Without humanlike body, computer can’t interact with nature. But such thinking has no immediate relevance.

AI can change human consciousness in a single generation. It need not take long. Many are influenced by AI. Mathematical insight cannot be expressed in algorithm. How thought generated, cannot be explained by physics. Quantum Physics too can’t create understanding. Template of brain mind has its limitations.

Neurosurgeon has a sense of wonder, but computer man is not having it to the same extent. He thinks what mind can do, computer can do better.It does reading, writing, memorizing and many more feats.“Nerds of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your brains” seems to be the modern slogan.

Genius was earlier understood as a gift others did not have. Now, it means a gift which cannot be programmed into a computer. Computers are invasive tools, which can change human thinking. We are becoming appendages of machines. Human beings are losing their precious skills by disuse.